Gong Li has long been a familiar face among fans of the art house circuit due to her appearances in such acclaimed foreign films as 1990's Ju Dou, 1991's Raise the Red Lantern and 1993's Farewell My Concubine. Gong raised eyebrows in her homeland of China for dating famed director Yimou Zhang when she was barely out of her teens, though that relationship ended in the mid-?90s; she has since married a tobacco executive. In 2005, Gong made her English-language debut to critical acclaim in the sweeping epic Memoirs of a Geisha and has slowly but surely carved out a niche for herself in various American films.